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Focusing on your goals
No matter how important and difficult ICT
can be, we must not lose sight of the fact
that it is only a means to an end; it isn’t an
end in itself. It should be viewed as a tool
for fulfilling or enabling an organisational
purpose, ICT in itself is worthless if it
does not do this. We have to devote time
and energy to managing ICT; we need
technical skills to get the best from it; we
spend a lot of money on it – but the use
we make of it should not be driven by
ICT itself, but by the needs of our agency.
It is too easy to get lost in the
complexities and technicalities of ICT
and forget what we are trying to achieve.
It is too easy for managers to let ICT
staff baffle them with technicalities, and
in effect withdraw from the planning
process. In addition, technical staff can
become too absorbed in the technology
and lose sight of the broader goals.
So, in developing our approach to
managing ICT, we must ensure that our
use of ICT is driven by the goals of the
organisation and doesn’t begin to take
on a false logic of its own. At worst, ICT
strategy can become little more than the
preface to a shopping list for new
equipment. Your goals must come first
and they will determine your decisions
on the right course of action.
A catch-phrase from the
commercial world says that there
are no ICT projects, only business
projects. We can translate that
into the world of the voluntary
sector by saying there are no ICT
projects, only projects to help
deliver on your mission.
Goals don’t have to be broad and
ambitious – the aim could be something
as simple as:
●
producing written documents more
efficiently;
●
managing your accounting and
budgeting so that you have better
information about your financial
situation;
●
recording your contacts with clients
more accurately and in more detail;
●
improving communications within the
agency and with others.
You must express your goals in nontechnical terms, and they must be set by
people who can see the bigger picture.
Otherwise you run the risk of missing a
crucial piece of the jigsaw.
(See Example 1.)
Why you need an
ICT Strategy
It is often recommended that organisations
should have an “ICT Strategy”,
sometimes also called a Technology Plan.
The danger when creating a strategy,
however, is of getting bogged down in a
mass of detail. It is far better to set out
broad guidelines and principles, then
ensure that staff and managers have the
skills to apply them effectively.
We suggest that the most important
thing is to tie individual decisions on ICT
directly to clear business goals which
make sense for the organisation as a
whole. The main goal of any voluntary
organisation is to provide a good service.
Whether it is written down or not, most
Example 1
Agency A switched desk top publishing
(DTP) applications from Serif Page
Plus to Quark Express, on the
enthusiastic recommendation of a
staff member who felt Quark had
better facilities for laying out their
newsletter and brochures.
At the same time, the
Management Committee decided to
collaborate formally in certain areas
with neighbouring agencies. This
would involve sharing leaflets and
training materials. It then transpired
that all the other agencies in the
network used Microsoft Publisher as
their DTP application since this was
more affordable for them than
Quark Express. Transferring material
between Quark and Publisher caused
considerable problems and took up
valuable time whenever a document
was to be shared.
The desk top publishing
application should have been chosen
in line with the Management
Committee policy, which would have
pointed up the need for compatibility
within the network. Without that
guidance, an apparently "technical"
decision ended up frustrating the
agency's overall aims. ●
have a pretty good idea what constitutes
a “good service” in their particular
circumstances. Ideally the general goal
will be broken down into a number of
more detailed objectives, which give the
agency its own distinctive culture and
character.
Before you can use ICT
effectively, you must have clear
goals for the organisation.
Obviously, the clearer the agency can be
about what its goals are, and the more
worked out its planning process, the
easier it is to judge how ICT can best fit
in to help achieve those goals. It may be
that ICT turns out not to have much of a
role at all – or that it is important in
some parts of the organisation, but not
in others; what is important is to have a
sound basis for making these decisions.
The next, relatively straightforward,
stage is to develop a set of policies as a
framework for all decisions relating to
ICT. Once these have been adopted,
they should guide decision-makers at any
level in decisions they make, whether it
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Managing ICT • Lasa Computanews Guide